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February 3, 2007

More on the SCOTUS deadly, but still shrinking, docket

This week brought some new coverage of one of my favorite issues: the excessively large number of capital cases on the Supreme Court's ever shrinking docket. The ACS Blog's Martin Magnusson has this great post entitled, "The Dominance of the Death Penalty on the Decreasing Supreme Court Docket." The post echoes my concerns about a SCOTUS docket "filled with criminal cases that have no impact on the vast majority of American inmates."

Relatedly, this Washington Post article discusses comments by Chief Justice John Roberts about the court's docket. I found this quote especially notable:

"I regarded this as a matter of great concern when I was a practicing lawyer, somewhat less significant when I became a Court of Appeals judge," Roberts said. And now that he has seen it from the high court's viewpoint, he says that at times, there just are not that many cases that merit the court's review.

I guess this means that CJ Roberts and the other Justices will understand why, because I am a practicing lawyer particularly in the arena of non-capital sentencing jurisprudence, I am always eagerly rooting for SCOTUS to take more non-capital sentencing cases.

» ACS on Death Penalty and the Supreme Court from StandDown Texas Project
ACS Blog has a little gem, The Dominance of the Death Penalty on the Decreasing Supreme Court Docket. It's written by Martin Magnusson.The Supreme Court's docket has dramatically decreased in the past twenty years. When Chief Justice Rehnquist assumed ... [Read More]

Tracked on Feb 5, 2007 11:31:03 AM

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